Bush Gets Back to Business

President says mine for oil.

"But mister presimadent, how does putting an oil platform in the gulf that would not come on-stream for years do anything about current fuel prices, or long-term emission questions?"

Photo courtesy of White House

If anyone was getting worried that President George Bush was getting introspective, don't worry, the world hasn't changed that much. Last week, in an interview with the Times of London, Dubya expressed some regret for his tone in selling the Iraq War. Not the war, just the rhetoric he used.

Still, this was shocking news for a nation used to his "Bring 'em on" style of discussion. Just as people started looking for rivers of bloods, birds falling from the sky and other similar signs of the end times, Dubya pulled a gotcha moment. In spite of the fact that oil companies have 68 million acres worth of off-shore drilling permits that they aren't using, Bush this morning was demanding that Congress hand over the rest of the rest of the coastline to oil companies by overthrowing the current offshore drilling moratorium (a moratorium introduced by his father when he was president and strongly backed by his own brother, Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida). He also wants to increase oil shale extraction (if you think that the energy-in to energy-out ratio and overall ecological damage of corn ethanol was bad, just wait for this sucker to kick in). He then blamed the Demmycrats for high gas prices and referred to last year's "Ominimus spending bill."

Phew. Glad to see there's no radical change of direction from this White House.